Principal Software Engineer (contract-to-hire)

SnoutID

SnoutID

Software Engineering
United States
Posted on Apr 12, 2025
🐶 Our mission

At Snout, our mission is to ensure no one ever has to make a healthcare decision for their pet based on the money in their bank account. As a modern financing alternative to traditional pet insurance, Snout wellness plans cover 100% of routine veterinary care like vaccinations, unlimited visits, and other valuable member benefits — designed to be used, not forgotten. We help pet owners prioritize care while removing financial risk for veterinary practices.

🚀 The opportunity

Snout is one of the fastest-growing wellness plan providers in the veterinary space, trusted by clinics across the US. We’re a small but mighty startup team of fewer than 30 passionate people. We're looking for a full stack Principal Software Engineer (contract-to-hire basis) to join our fully remote engineering team. You will have the opportunity to transition to a full-time role after 3 months. You’ll play a key role in shaping our platform, securing our systems, mentoring teammates, and helping us scale with care and intention.

💻 The role

As a full stack Principal Software Engineer, you’ll develop across all layers of our platform from frontend to backend. You’ll also help integrate with veterinary practice management systems. Web security is a core concern for this role and you will be our front line defense against evil-doers trying to steal our customer data and interfere with financial transactions. You’ll also be providing mentorship and guidance for our engineering team, and working with our product management team to ensure that our technical work takes good care of our end users and their business needs.

Our ideal candidate has at least 10 years of experience building software or web applications. You will have worked with multiple language paradigms including JavaScript and frameworks like Node, Koa and React. You have a deep understanding of HTTP and are comfortable analyzing database performance issues. You will help lead the charge in keeping our platform secure. We want someone who is comfortable with making sense of chaos and is capable of handling wild curveballs like suddenly needing to build a native Win32 app in C and Pascal.

If you're curious, versatile, and love tackling big challenges in a small team, Snout could be your home!

🛠 What You’ll Do

  • Collaborate with product to deliver elegant, user-centered solutions
  • Build and ship new features across the full stack using JavaScript, React, Node, Koa and PostgreSQL
  • Own DevOps tasks, including managing infrastructure, deployments using AWS and Linux environments
  • Ensure platform security and integrity — your vigilance keeps our customer data safe
  • Triage and resolve bugs with empathy and precision
  • Mentor and support other engineers on the team

💡What We're Looking For

  • 10+ years of software development experience in a production setting
  • Mastery of JavaScript and confidence working across the stack using frameworks like Node, Koa, React or similar
  • Hands-on experience with SQL databases, preferably PostgreSQL
  • Deep knowledge of HTTP, computer networking, Linux, bash/zsh and AWS services
  • A passion for writing clean, secure, and testable code
  • Ability to work anywhere in our tech stack or across job functions — you thrive in ambiguity, adapt quickly, and get scrappy when needed
  • Strong communication, leadership and mentorship skills

🌟 Bonus points for

  • Stripe or similar payments integrations
  • Project or product management experience
  • Exposure to a startup or fast-paced environment
  • Background in fintech or security sensitive systems
  • A healthy sense of humor and love of pets (bonus points if your pet occasionally joins Slack huddles)

💖 Why you should join Snout

  • Be part of a mission-driven company improving pet health and veterinary sustainability
  • Have real impact where every line of code you write helps clinics care for pets
  • Work on a tight-knit, collaborative team where your contributions matter
  • You will be given the opportunity to wear multiple hats and grow professionally in many aspects
  • Competitive salary, equity options, and comprehensive benefits package (medical, dental, vision, 401k)

❌ Why you should NOT apply

  • You have not been hands-on coding in the last 2 years
  • You only want to work with the newest and flashiest technology
  • You’re not into refactoring or improving legacy code
  • Object oriented programming is what you prefer
  • You don’t enjoy working remotely and are not a self-starter
  • A fast-moving startup environment stresses you out
  • Working alone or on small teams doesn’t sound fun to you
  • You dislike wearing multiple hats or having a heavy workload
  • You prefer strict structure and clearly defined roles